{"id":207,"date":"2013-02-03T11:19:36","date_gmt":"2013-02-03T01:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.electoralreformaustralia.org\/?p=207"},"modified":"2014-01-20T16:37:12","modified_gmt":"2014-01-20T06:37:12","slug":"adelaide-city-council-discriminates-against-plutocrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/?p=207","title":{"rendered":"Adelaide City Council Discriminates Against Plutocrats!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide City Council currently chooses its Lord Mayor and Councillors in five separate elections: one for Lord Mayor; one for 5 Area Councillors; and three ward elections electing 2 Ward Councillors each.<\/p>\n

Is this system fair? Are all plutocrats treated equally?<\/p>\n

Councillor Election<\/h2>\n

Consider the influence of the following voters\u00a0in the election of councillors:<\/p>\n

Voter A \u00a0– Net worth $500,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Owns, with the bank, two small rental\u00a0properties in two different wards and lives\u00a0with his parents in the third ward.<\/p>\n

Number of Votes = 5<\/strong> \u00a0(1 Mayoral; 1 Area Councillor; 3 Ward\u00a0Councillors)<\/p>\n

Voter B – Net worth $10 million<\/strong><\/p>\n

Owns two factories in different wards and lives on Kangaroo Island<\/p>\n

Number of Votes = 4<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0(1 Mayoral; 1 Area Councillor; 2 Ward\u00a0Councillors)<\/p>\n

Voter C – Net worth $100 million<\/strong><\/p>\n

Owns three office blocks in the central business district and lives in the penthouse of\u00a0one of them.<\/p>\n

Number of Votes = 3<\/strong> \u00a0(1 Mayoral; 1 Area Councillor; 1 Ward Councillor)<\/p>\n

Is that fair?<\/p>\n

No, it is seriously undemocratic. Multiple voting went out in the nineteenth century. In a democracy, all plutocrats, and indeed all voters, should be treated equally.<\/p>\n

Solution<\/h2>\n

Abolish all wards and elect all the Councillors as Area Councillors; every voter then gets one vote for Mayor and one vote for the Councillors.<\/p>\n

Advantages<\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Every voter is treated equally.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Every Councillor has the same responsibilities. It is worth noting the\u00a0<\/span>following extract from Adelaide City\u2019s website, \u201cThe Lord Mayor and\u00a0<\/span>Councillors are elected by voters across the Adelaide City Council, and have a responsibility to the City as a whole.\u201d The suggested electoral arrangement eliminates any potential conflict a Councillor may have between ward and\u00a0<\/span>city responsibilities.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Councillors no longer need to decide which election they will run in.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Lord Mayoral Election<\/h2>\n

    Adelaide City Council prevents candidates from running for both Lord Mayor and<\/p>\n

    Councillor positions. This has major disadvantages.<\/p>\n

    Consider the following scenarios.<\/p>\n

    Scenario 1<\/h3>\n

    Two highly experienced candidates run for Lord Mayor. One will lose and his\/her\u00a0experience and expertise will be lost to the Council.<\/p>\n

    Scenario 2<\/h3>\n

    The less popular party\/group runs a dud as their Lord Mayoral candidate because they do not want a valued member of the group to lose. The result is that the dominant group wins an easy election and the voters are denied an honest choice.<\/p>\n

    Scenario 3<\/h3>\n

    The less popular party\/group runs a dud as their Lord Mayoral candidate but an\u00a0unexpected change in voting patterns sees that candidate elected as Lord Mayor. Now the City has a dud as Lord Mayor and the services of the experienced losing candidate are lost to the city.<\/p>\n

    The voters of Adelaide City deserve to be able to choose between the best candidates the parties or groups can put up.<\/p>\n

    Solution:<\/h2>\n

    No candidate should be elected Lord Mayor unless they are also elected as a councillor.<\/p>\n

    This should not be a problem as election for Lord Mayor would require over 50% of the vote and a quota for election as a Councillor, in a ward of ten or more, is less than 10%.<\/p>\n

    Furthermore, all groups would be comfortable in running the leaders of their teams \u2013 their most able and experienced candidates \u2013 as their Lord Mayoral candidates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Adelaide City Council currently chooses its Lord Mayor and Councillors in five separate elections: one for Lord Mayor; one for 5 Area Councillors; and three ward elections electing 2 Ward Councillors each. Is this system fair? Are all plutocrats treated equally? Councillor Election Consider the influence of the following voters\u00a0in the election of councillors: Voter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316,"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoralreformaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}